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"Manufacturing faces significant changes in the future that will act as threats, as well as huge opportunities for New Zealand if we can get ahead, such as Industry 4.0, automation and other technologies like 3D printing.

"A more focused view of manufacturing, through a Minister for Manufacturing, will help develop more effective responses to these changes."

Labour's employment spokesman Grant Robertson said the idea was interesting and one his party could support.

Robertson, also the shadow finance minister, has led his party's Future of Work Commission, a two-year project that will inform Labour's new economic development policies.

The fact that a huge number of blue- and white-collar jobs will be lost to robotics, automisation and computerisation is a major reason for the project, and Robertson has said that addressing these changes will mean a radical change of direction for Labour.